Muffled footfalls on a wooden floor. Then Dara’s voice, low and wary, said, “Who is it?”
Noam leaned in against the shimmering gold mesh of Lehrer’s magic. “It’s me. Can you let me in?”
Dara’s sharp inhale was audible even from the other side of the door. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I’m on a rescue mission, Rapunzel. Now let down your hair.” He smiled even though Dara couldn’t see it. He pressed his hand against the cool wooden frame and imagined Dara standing just a foot away, perhaps touching the same wood.
The seconds ticked past, one after the other.
Eventually, Noam said, “Dara? Did you hear me?”
“Yes. I... I can’t undo the ward. No magic. I’m—”
“Suppressed.” Obviously. Fuck. “Um. Okay. Can you tell me how to do it?”
He could practically see Dara’s expression, probably derisive. Dara explained the process to him anyway, step by halting step. Noam’s magic felt like a blunt instrument scraping against Lehrer’s fine thread work, but at last it unraveled like a spool of string.
The door opened, and there he was, Dara, standing on the other side in civvies with an IV in his arm and a surprised look on his face—as if Noam wasn’t who he expected to find standing there after all.
“It’s really you,” he said.
“Who did you think it was? Chancellor Sacha, risen from the dead?”
Noam grinned, and after a moment Dara smiled back, a tentative thing that didn’t quite fit on his lips. Of course—once upon a time, Dara would have had his hands in Noam’s mind already, fingers combing through his thoughts. He’d have known exactly who was on the other side of the door, even if Noam didn’t say a word.
At least Dara didn’t look like he was dying anymore—and he was coherent, which was something. Still.
Noam’s heart clenched. He ignored it.
“We’d better hurry,” he said and gestured vaguely toward the ceiling. “Lehrer probably felt me take the wards down. He’ll be here any second, and I really don’t want to go back to prison just yet.”
But Dara didn’t go get his things, didn’t even tear the needle out of his arm. Instead he lurched forward and threw his arms around Noam, face pressing against Noam’s shoulder. “I knew you’d remember,” he murmured into Noam’s neck. His brow, pressed to Noam’s skin, was still feverish.
“I couldn’t leave you here,” Noam said. He slipped a hand into Dara’s hair, resisting the urge to twist his fingers in those curls and keep Dara there for good. “What you said, after... I thought you might...”
Dara’s mouth stayed silent. Noam closed his eyes and took in a breath of Dara’s scent, sharp with the salt of sweat. It was several seconds before he could bring himself to grasp Dara’s shoulders and push him back. Dara’s cheeks were a dark rose now, and that wasn’t just inflammation.
“Do you have anything you need to get? I brought some clothes,” Noam said and lifted the pack demonstratively.
“No. Nothing.” Dara hesitated for just a second, then ripped the tape off his IV site. The needle slipped free easily, ruby droplets spilling across Lehrer’s polished wood floor. “I should have taken it out earlier. But Lehrer said...” Dara trailed off, rubbing the heel of his hand against the pinprick wound. When he drew his hand away, there was blood on his palm. Dara stared at the reddened skin and bit his lower lip.
At last, Dara whispered, “I didn’t know what he would do.”
Noam nodded slowly. Dara was right. Lehrer wouldn’t have let Dara leave that easily, not with the stakes so high.
Which was why it was insane that he was doing this now. Dara could die. Noam knew that.
But if he left Dara in here...
Dara said he’d rather be dead, and Noam had believed him.
He pinged the security cameras. Lehrer was on the second floor and headed this way. He’d be here in less than ten minutes. He didn’t look pleased.
“We gotta go,” Noam said.
But Dara stayed where he was, pale and twisting his fingers together in front of his stomach. “Listen, Noam,” he started. For one dizzying second Noam was so sure Dara was about to say,I changed my mind—but then: “Lehrer... he told me not to leave the apartment.”
It took a second for those words to parse. Then:
